Butterfly Arising

by Landis Lain

  “No, yuck!”

  “Then you can’t get pregnant,” he said. “No bleed, no breed.”

  “How you know that?”

  “My boys told me,” he said. “Plus, look.” He pecked some keys on his computer.

  “You have to be men, um, you got to bleed first,” he said. I read the article he pointed to.

  It looked like he was right after all.

  “I been liking you for a while,” he said. “You’re growing up nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You look like her,” he said, pointing to my Beyoncé t-shirt.

  “Who?”

  “Beyoncé,” he said. “Just with dark hair.”

  “No, I don’t.” I blushed. “For real?”

  “You even got a nice butt like hers,” he said. “You’re bootylicious.”

  “We both laughed,” said Sasha. “Teddy got up off the couch and went and got one of Daddy’s bottles of liquor out of the bar cabinet on the other side of the family room.”

  “I told him, Daddy is going to get you.”

  “What he gonna do, yell?” He opened the bottle and turned it up to his lips. He offered it to me.

  “I’d be too scared,” I said, even though a thrill went through me.

  “Baby,” he taunted.

  I took a drink just to shut him up, then coughed and spat. It was nasty, but after the second sip I couldn’t taste it because my mouth was numb, and my throat was on fire. After a while, things got a little blurry.

  Sasha paused, shame rising inside again.

  “Go ahead,” said Dr. Michelle.

  “We, Teddy and I, were both mad and a little drunk,” she said and then the story tumbled out, words coming faster and faster. “The next thing I knew, my pants were down, and we were doing it on the floor. It hurt something awful because he was bigger than I expected, but I didn’t make him stop because I was still mad at Althea and Daddy and because I didn’t want Teddy to think I was just a baby. He was heavy and sweaty and mumbled a lot. After a while he stopped and fell on top of me like he was dead. I could smell his stinking breath and sweaty underarms. He still had on his Tiger’s baseball cap. I pushed him off and pulled my pants up over my sticky wet thighs. We didn’t look at each other. I just got up off the floor and went and took a shower. I didn’t tell Teddy about the little bit of blood I found on the toilet paper. I scrubbed for a long time even though I was sore and then brushed my teeth so hard my gums ached. Teddy filled the liquor bottle up with water and put it back in the cabinet. Then he went to take his own shower. I threw all the clothes into the washing machine. The room smelled funny, so we opened the window even though it was cold outside. We still didn’t look at each other. When Daddy and Althea got home we were both sitting on the couch in our pajamas, not looking at each other, watching The Incredibles on the Disney channel. They gave us ten dollars apiece for watching Trey.”

  “So, that’s what happened, huh?” asked Dr. Michelle.

  Sasha nodded. “Yeah. Six weeks later…”

  “That’s a tale for next time.”

  ABANDONED

  June 22,

  I started throwing up just after my 13th birthday and could not stop. I threw up so hard and so much I expected to see my toe nails in the toilet when I looked down. After two whole days of throwing up, Althea took me to the hospital. Daddy was working double shifts. I was so sick that I didn’t care that I had to ride in the car with Demon baby. I just asked for my daddy over and over again. I wanted him to wrap me up in my princess blanket and save me from the monsters. But the monster was inside me.

  Sasha finished reading the newest entry into her journal and looked at the woman seated across from her. She gnawed on her already bitten thumb nail and gave up when her teeth couldn’t find any hanging skin or nail to latch onto.

  “What’s the story?” asked Dr. Michelle. Her face was suffused with sympathy behind her stylish cat eye glasses. “You feel like telling it?”

  “Not really,” said Sasha. “But I don’t want to waste my mama’s money.

  “Good one,” said Dr. Michelle.

  “I asked for my daddy repeatedly,” began Sasha. “But he was at work.”

  “Your Daddy is not here,” said Althea.

  “Then I want my mama,” I moaned, because I was dying.

  The doctor was a woman. She came and stood by my bed.

  “I’m Doctor Rodgers,” said, smiling. “What have we here?”

  “Intractable vomiting,” said the nurse. “We are getting a bacteria culture for possible food poisoning…” The nurse droned on and on. Dr. Rodgers asked thousands of questions.

  “Any chance you might be pregnant?” she finally asked. I shook my head.

  “I don’t bleed yet,” I gasped out. “I can’t be.”

  “What a ridiculous question,” said Althea, scornfully. “She is only twelve.

  “Thirteen,” I corrected.

  Dr. Rodgers looked at me sharply. Then she said to Althea, “Mom, why don’t you grab a cup of coffee from the cafeteria, while I do a preliminary examination.”

  Althea nodded and left the room.

  Dr. Rodgers examined me, all the while asking embarrassing questions, which I answered in between dry heaves. She had me pee in a cup and then sat down to talk to me some more.

  “Did you have sex with someone,” she asked.

  I bit my lip, then nodded.

  “But he said I couldn’t get pregnant,” I told her. I wasn’t supposed to tell Daddy or Althea, but Teddy didn’t say I couldn’t tell the doctor, especially if I was sick.

  “Who?” asked Dr. Rodgers, gently.

  “Teddy,” I said.

  “And who is Teddy?” she asked.

  “My stepbrother, “I said.

  “And how old is your stepbrother?” Dr. Rodgers asked. She was sounding a little sterner.

  “Almost 17,” I said.

  “And you had sex with him?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I think so. I did bleed some afterward.”

  “WHAT!!!!”

  Both of our heads snapped around as Althea stood there, black coffee splattered down the front of her white blouse.

  “Isn’t that hot?” I asked. My eyes tracked the empty cup on the floor, coffee oozing in a steadily widening puddle.

  “What did you say?” Althea’s voice was awful, and she was looking at me as if she hated me.

  “This little girl is about six weeks pregnant,” said Dr. Rodgers. “Your son is apparently the sperm donor.”

  Althea would not believe it. She threatened and pleaded with me to take it back. She asked me all the questions that the doctor had asked. Finally, the doctor had had enough. She explained pre-natal care to both Althea and I. Althea insisted on another test. After the second pregnancy test came back positive, Dr. Rodgers gave us options and a prescription for vitamins. I got an IV, juice and crackers, which made me feel a little better. Althea pocketed the business card and led me out of the hospital. She hadn’t said a word after the second positive result, but she looked awful. I was scared I was going to get a whooping for sure. Althea carried Trey, who had slept through everything for a change, to the car and strapped him to the car seat. We went by the drug store and Althea made me wait in the car. I closed my eyes. I was tired. Trey slept all the way home. We said not one word.

  When we got back to Althea’s house, she pulled into the garage and stormed out of the car. I unbuckled Trey and brought him in to the house in time to see Althea smacking Teddy in the head with her purse. His baseball cap went flying across the room.

  “Ow, Ma, that hurt! What you doing?” Teddy ducked and grabbed the purse from her hands. He slid to the floor because Althea’s fists were flying hard and fast.

  She was yelling at him, screaming so hard that I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Trey, the little weirdo, kept right on sleeping in my arms. Finally, Althea wound down and Teddy got up off the floor.

  “You could go to jail
,” gasped Althea. She was out of breath. She rounded on me.

  “And you, little fast tail,” she gasped. “What is wrong with you? Do you want your daddy to kill us all? Why you gotta be such a terrible child?”

  I shook my head, eyes big as quarters. I looked at Teddy. Both Teddy and I sat on the couch while she ranted.

  “Neither one of you’d better say a word,” she said. “Or I will beat you to death.”

  I believed her since she had just been beating Teddy with her fists. She finally sent us both to bed. A few hours later, she came into my room and gave me a pill and some juice. I woke up after midnight, crying in pain, cramping and bleeding.

  Daddy came to sit by my bed. “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked.

  “My stomach hurts,” I moaned.

  Althea came into the room and took one look at me. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “It’s just her first monthly period. The first one is real hard for some girls.”

  She eyed me from behind his back and I said nothing. I didn’t want Daddy to kill Althea or Teddy or me. She hustled Daddy out of the room and brought me some pads. For two days I cramped and bled something awful. On the third day, the cramps finally stopped, and the bleeding slowed down. Daddy stayed away from me as if I had a killing disease. After five days, I was back to normal.

  Teddy told me that I wasn’t pregnant anymore. He stood in my door and said it, because he was not allowed in my room. I didn’t believe him because he was wrong about the bleeding in the first place, but it turned out that he was right. Althea said so. Althea made me swear on the bible never to tell Daddy about the pregnancy or Teddy and me. She told me that I was a twelve-year-old fallen woman. In exchange, she said she wouldn’t tell Daddy that Teddy and I had been drinking his liquor. I swore. She swore. Teddy swore. We didn’t tell.

  ABANDONED

  June 29,

  Today is my 20th birthday. But, I feel ancient. I read somewhere that girls mature faster than boys. Another lie. We do stuff with boys and are forced deal with adult consequences before we realize that childhood is over. Mine ended before I turned 13.

  Sasha looked up from the journal. “Daddy came and told me that I needed to go back to stay with mama.”

  “Why Daddy?” I asked.

  “Because you are getting to be a young lady now,” he said. “And it’s better for young ladies to stay with their mothers.”

  “Is Teddy going to live with his daddy?” I asked.

  “Why would you ask that?” he asked.

  “He is even older than I am,” I said. “Shouldn’t young men live with their fathers?”

  “He can’t” said Daddy.

  “Why not?”

  “Teddy’s daddy is not around,” said Daddy. He could not come up anything else. He had a pleading expression his face. I looked at his face trying to find my daddy for a long time, but he belonged to Althea, and Trey and Teddy.

  Daddy bought me a fourteen-karat gold necklace with a heart attached to it. It had heart shaped earrings to match. I wore them when he took me back home to Mama. I told Mama that I didn’t want to go back to Daddy’s and I didn’t. It was my fault that my daddy didn’t feel the same way about me anymore. Somehow, he knew everything was different and was sending me away. I wasn’t his little princess anymore. I was a bad girl. I had to go. I used to tell Daddy everything. I couldn’t talk to him anymore.”

  “Why?” asked Dr. Michelle.

  Sasha shook her head and looked down at her hands.

  “Daddy would drive down to Lansing to see me whenever he could get away from work, but it wasn’t the same. Mama hated him, and I was ashamed, so the visits were awkward. Teddy joined the army when he turned eighteen, but I still wouldn’t go back,” said Sasha. “After a while Daddy and I both stopped making the effort. I told Daddy not to come back, because I didn’t want to see him. He asked me why. I told him girls should be with their mama’s. I couldn’t tell him the truth. He said he would respect my decision, but I could tell he was messed up about it.”

  “Was there a problem with you going back to your mom?” asked Dr. Michelle after I finished my story. “I mean after eighth grade?”

  Sasha shook her head.

  “Mr. Redmond and Mama had separated right before I came home. I didn’t ask why.”

  “You know the killing part about getting kicked out of Daddy’s?”

  “What?

  “Althea got rid of both the pregnancy and me in one week,” murmured Sasha. “Teddy got to stay. I got banished.” Dr. Michelle leaned forward to catch the soft words.

  “How did that make you feel?” She asked the question gently. “Inside?”

  “Icy,” said Sasha. “Like I would never be warm again.”

  INTRIGUED

  July 6,

  No therapy this week. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I wake up. I get up and put my clothes on. I get through the day. I want to weep, my soul hurts so badly, but I can’t. I try to shut me off, so I can feel nothing. That doesn’t work anymore. Silence is safer, but silence got me here. So, I write my thoughts on paper. I decide how much I want to share. The pages don’t pry. Or share. Or question my hurt. One more hurtful blow and my heart is going to explode like icicles dropped on cement.

  Then, I hear a story of someone else’s hurt and it hits like a hammer on a chisel. I realize that other people have tragic, drama filled stories, too. And that person put the hurt behind them. What does she have that I don’t?

  “Miss Sasha,” said old Mother Jones. “I hear you are headed for Michigan State.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Sasha. She was pushing a sleeping Ricky in the stroller across the concrete pavilion floor at Frances Park. She’d been to the rose garden and watched the butterflies flit from flower to flower. Ricky had squealed with glee, reaching out to capture a black butterfly with white spots and a blue bottom that lit close to him, but to Sasha’s relief it fluttered away just before Ricky’s grubby fingers could close over its wings. What she wouldn’t give to just float away on the next breeze. At least the butterfly was not trapped by old church women.

  “Sit down here next to me,” said Old Mother Jones in sharp, precise diction. She was wearing a yellow sun hat to match her yellow and white pants suit. Her shoulder-length white hair was perfectly coiffed. Mother Jones was always dressed to impress. As old as she was, even Sasha thought she wore some bad rags. Not that Sasha cared about clothes, or shoes, or anything anymore. Old Mother Jones patted the empty picnic chair next to her with bejeweled hand. Sasha wanted to run away but that would be disrespectful and tick Mama off. Things were tense enough. Sasha sat and looked around.

  The park was pretty and flower-filled. It was the perfect place for the annual church Fourth of July church picnic. Contemporary Gospel blared from the sound system. The younger children ran around screaming and laughing in the brightly colored play area. The smoky scent of seared hot dogs, hamburgers and ribs filled the air. The brothers crowded around one end of the pavilion nearest the billowing barbeque grill, loudly bragging and proclaiming whatever accomplishment they had that outdid the brother next to them. Some of the men were filling the coolers with drinks and others were playing dominoes or cards.

  Farther away, under the sun, the young men and bigger boys were throwing horseshoes or lounging at the picnic tables in muscled splendor while a gaggle of half-clad teenaged girls and very young women mooned over them or giggled over make-up and the latest rap star. The grown women, Mama included, and the rest of the mothers were setting up the picnic tables, laughing, waving away flies and bees, and talking, incessantly talking while filling up the already heavily laden tables with fried chicken, greens, cornbread, corn on the cob and baked beans. The scent of food and sweat and sunshine made Sasha nauseous.

  Sasha was excused from the general labor of the women because she had a small child. She was no longer a part of the young people because she had a baby and was possibly self-injurious. Sasha was banished to the nether region of
that category of women who served out their penance in muted public; the single mother with problems. Shunned because of the crazy. The church wouldn’t kick her out, but Sasha knew that out of her earshot, her pitiful life was dissected regularly. Held up as a cautionary tale to the teenaged girls of what not to do. Keep your panties up and your dress down. Or if you must sin, find a husband or end up like Sasha, with living proof of fornication. Not only was Sasha a baby mama, she had no baby daddy around. Alone.

  Sasha hadn’t wanted to come to the picnic, but her mother had insisted. Sasha was not to be left on her own lest she think about the river. When would her penance end? She wished Dr. Michelle was back from her conference or vacation or whatever.

  “What are you planning to study?” asked Mother Jones, bringing Sasha’s attention back from the tableaux. Sasha always thought of the woman as old Mother Jones because she was about five years younger than the bible and knew all the dirt on everybody. She would suck her teeth, which she declared were all real, praise God and regale anyone who would listen with everyone else’s business. Sasha thought Mother Jones was mean and avoided her as much as possible. She was the pastor’s auntie. Who was going to tell her not to gossip?

  “Pre-med,” said Sasha. She eyed the old woman with dread.

  Hopefully, she wouldn’t comment about unwed mothers or something else embarrassing.

  “You are going to be a doctor?” The tiny old woman nodded, meeting Sasha’s eyes. She smiled, teeth gleaming improbably white in her dusky face. “That’s good. I wanted to be a doctor once, you know?”

  “You did?” asked Sasha, surprised out of her customary apathy. “Really?”

  As long as Sasha had known her, the only things she’d known about Old Mother Jones was that she had been the first black administrator at one of the nearby hospitals and that she had a wicked, supercilious tongue that would cut a person so fast they’d be down on the ground bleeding before they knew they’d been stabbed.

  “Yes, I did,” said Mother Jones, patting Sasha’s hand. “My mama was the midwife down on the farm where I grew up. I learned how to birth a baby almost before I was breeched myself, you know? I was smart. I wanted to be like Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, who was the first Negro woman to graduate from an American medical school back in 1863.”